Libertarian / person skeptical of marx reading vol. 1 of Capital; I have a question

I'm on chapter 10 right now, and it doesn't seem like it's going to be addressed. It sort of appears as if Marx's entire elaborate system falls apart upon its inquiry. I'm also reading "Companion to Capital" by Harvey, and "Reading Capital" by 'various'. Here it is:

To Marx, the value of the commodity labor-power is the value of the means of sustenance required to reproduce it on the part of the laborer. OK. He also says that the use-value of labor power is labor, i.e., the consumption of laborpower by the capitalist to whom it is sold is the laboring of the labourer (or the capitalist's being able to boss around the labourer to do this), who, in this act, can originally produce (ignoring the "metempsychosis" of the value of the MoP) more value than labor-power is valued at. The difference between the latter and the former is surplus-value. But, why is this possible? How can this non-equivalence occur? It's because, to Marx, the value of laborpower (the commodity) is the value of the means of sustenance required to allow him to 'reproduce himself' DAILY. My question is, isn't Marx wrong here?
The value of a commodity is always the amount of socially neccesary labor-time congealed in that commodity, and never more or less. So the value of labor-power is the value of the MoS required to reproduce that amount of labor power only. But then the labor-power is consumed, and its use-value, labor, not only reproduces the value of the labor-power but also produces surplus-value. But shouldn't the MoS whose value determines the price of labor-power be that amount/type/whatever of sustenance which allows the laborer to labor only for the amount of time needed to reproduce the value of his labor-power?
That's to say that, the commodity "labor power" isn't some mephistophelian contract. It is a quantitative thing, right? So its value should be the value of the MoS which can reproduce the amount of labor, specifically, which its consumption is, or which its use-value is, not some vague "daily" amount of labor-time. "labor power"'s use-value is labor for a certain quantity of time, so the MoS which reproduce labor-power should be only that amount which gives the laborer the 'vital energy' to perform that amount of labor: the same amount of labor which went into producing, and which could produce, if employed to do so, the MoS required to reproduce it. Shouldn't surplus value not exist at all? (I'm not here to explain profit, just to question Marx using his own rules.) Any labor performed which produces value above and beyond that of labor-power should require more MoS to perform, and so should be accounted for in the value of the labor-power sold. Labor isn't something distant from labor-power; the former literally IS the latter in action. The MoS which produce the latter should only be that MoS which lends to the former enough "vital energy" to reproduce the value of the latter.


So, to recapitulate, to Marx:
labourer sells labor-power at market for the value of the means of sustenance required to vitalize labourer ➛ labor-power bought and consumed by captalist ➛ labourer labors so as to reproduce value of labor-power ➛ labor labors even more, so as to create surplus-value
to notorious political economist and philosopher Me:
labourer sells labor-power at market for only the value of the means of sustenance required to vitalize the labourer only for that amount of laboring-time he is going to undertake ➛ labor power bought and consumed by capitalist ➛ labourer labors so as to reproduce value of labor-power ➛ he hasn't the energy to labor more; he has the energy to live and go home and relax and stuff more, but not to continue laboring, because the value of something is the labor neccesary to produce it, and that 'something' is the labor-power for a specific number of hours' laboring, so the means of sustenance, whose value is the value of labor-power, should only be that quantity and quality of sustenance which gives the labourer the strength to labor for some hours and just live until the next day otherwise

I don't know if I've communicated my objection clearly enough. Maybe it's nonsense, and I'm in over my head– this is pretty muddy stuff. (Marx's repetitive fucking jargon doesn't help. He clearly wanted as little people as possible to be Marxists.) Attempting to write this post has only made me doubt myself even more. Anybody got an answer?

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The laborer produces more value through his labor power than he is compensated in a wage, which is instead taken by the capitalist as profit. This is the concept of surplus value. Is that what you were asking?

You're a fucking retard and haven't understood what you read. Maybe reading Ayn Rand fantasy novels is more suited to your level of intelligence.

Lmao at thinking you found some big flaw in his argumentation after 200 years of people studying that work and only having found two to three legit ways to attack his argumentation (of which all are debatable and subjective)

Also the companion you are reading is useless

And why are you talking about vital energy like it's some shit from dragon ball

Sage because you are retard

You pretty much couldn't help less.


lol
Have you, uh. read Marx. That exact phrase is used in ch 6, and Marx/s language w/r/t to the nature of labor is repeated constantly. I know this is bait but you're retarded

There are tons of baiters/false flags on this board. Gotta tread carefully.

Stop that, Harvey is fucking retarded.

Value of labor power is not bare sustenance, it's subject to various cultural standards, class war, etc. Moreover, a system in which workers could only output as much labor was put into their reproduction would be a closed system that would inevitably and rapidly die out. Workers can output more labor than they consume because outside energy is entering the economy through food (solar energy in plants, etc) and other forms of energy like fossil fuels (heating, transport, etc all part of the cost of labor power).
As well, the output of labor power doesn't scale linearly with sustenance. You can't feed a worker 20 burgers to get 20 times the labor output. You can't give workers gallons of coffee and expect them to work nonstop without sleep. There are obviously lower limits as well.

I'm going to break down your comments.

Because modern society always produces more than what's required to maintain a subsistence level. This extra amount produced is the surplus. When a wage-laborer creates profits for his employer he is, in essence, providing that employer with surplus labor.
This is true in the abstract but it's important to note that the concrete prices at which commodities are sold rarely reflects this ideal value, and is often above or below it depending on a number of factors.
No, because employers do not know (at least, beyond a general idea) what precisely is the minimum level of wages required to sustain a wage-laborer. And it wouldn't be possible anyway since market conditions frequently change and often depend upon local conditions. Further, it's not possible to quantify precisely the value required for each individual hour of labor to be performed. That hour must contain the value necessary not only to feed a worker but also to pay for housing, transportation, and all sorts of other costs. Trying to break it down like you suggest simply wouldn't work.
If surplus value didn't exist there would be no mechanism of accumulation in capitalism.
That's true, but capital has no use for subsistence labor. The accumulation of capital and its transformation of raw materials into machinery and means of production intensifies the productivity of labor and transforms subsistence labor into surplus-producing labor.

This is definitely the most useful part of your two comments. So it's a hard-wired social necessity that the value of labor-power can only be approximated in 'per day' units? But, is that the sole phenomenon on which the existence of surplus-value hinges, that the value of labor-power can't be ascertained to that degree of specificity which eliminates the possibility of exploitation?

This is a summary of chapter 19 which might help clarify the issue. The last point is especially important.

a) Marx begins by mentioning the the wage of the laborer is what appears to be the value of labor. The fluctuating prices tending to oscillate around a normal or "natural" price.

b) Marx then digresses and notes that the value of a commodity is measured by the quantity of socially-necessary labor utilized in its production. It would be tautological to apply this to labor itself.

c) In order to be sold, labor must exist in a raw unrealized form, otherwise laborers would simply sell some type of commodity rather than labor itself.

d) Based on the above, Marx moves onto the following point, which is that if equivalent units of value were exchanged there would be no accumulation of surpluses, and thus no "law of value" at all.

e) Here Marx states that what happens during production is that the laborer works partly for himself, and partly for the capitalist. That is, if the working day is 12 hours the laborer will earn a wage expressing the value of say, 6 hours, while the remaining 6 hours of value remains with the capitalist.

f) Another digression. The value of a commodity is determined by the quantity of living labor expended in production and not the total realized labor that may be stored up in machinery or some type of invention. If a machine reduces the socially-necessary labor-time by half, the value of the commodity likewise falls by half.

g) The laborer sells his labor-power, not his labor. Labor itself has no value.

h) Marx then engages in a long criticism of explanations of value based upon supply and demand, which only seem to explain fluctuations in price without actually explaining the underlying value.

i) The value of labor must always be less than the value it produces. If the laborer is paid X amount for his day's work, then that corresponds to the amount of necessary for its own reproduction. In feudalism the serf worked so many days for the lord and so many days for himself, and the division was obvious. In a system of wage-labor it appears that all labor is paid for even though the old division still exists.

j) The use-value supplied by the laborer is actually not his labor-power but its function, i.e. tailoring, shoemaking, spinning, etc.

k) The value of labor is not constant, but can fluctuate.

l) If the capitalist truly paid the full value of labor he would possess no capital since no surplus would accumulate.

Well, yes. Marx assumes that this is a fixed data point for ease of analysis.
You mean that a system in which the means of sustenance only sustains the laborer who consumes them to the degree that he could reproduce their values, and no more, would die off quickly because of the lack of growth or productivity (that it would die off is beyond the scope of this conversation, but taking that it would)? Like, a MoS whose value is a congealed socially-necessary labour-hours would have to produce a + x, or A' labour-hours. A thing whose value-form is some quantity of labor, when consumed, engenders the action of laboring to a greater magnitude than the labor its value is expressed in. I'm pretty tired, but I think this may entirely answer my question and ease my complaints. I'll re-evaluate this in the morning I think.


Hence my use of "value" and not "price".